Ep 348: The Dana Download with Dana Arschin and guest Julie Brill on hmTv

The Dana Download, Ep. 348
Guest: Julie Brill, Author of Hidden in Plain Sight

In this powerful and eye-opening episode, host Dana Arschin sits down with author Julie Brill to explore a Holocaust story few people have ever heard — the near-total destruction of the Jewish community of Belgrade, Serbia, and the remarkable survival of Julie’s father as a young child hidden in plain sight.

Julie’s memoir, Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia, uncovers a chapter of history long overshadowed by the more widely known narratives of Poland, Germany, and Western Europe. Through meticulous research, newly uncovered archives, emotional journeys back to Serbia, and unexpected reunions with previously unknown family members, Julie brings to light a tragedy that claimed nearly an entire community — leaving behind almost no survivors to tell the tale.

Dana and Julie discuss:

• The striking absence of Serbian Holocaust stories in mainstream education
• Julie’s process of piecing together her father’s fragmented childhood memories
• The brutal, early, and almost complete annihilation of Belgrade’s Jews
• The emotional significance of returning to Serbia with her father and daughters
• The groundbreaking installation of the first Stolpersteine in Belgrade
• The responsibility descendants feel to preserve and pass on these nearly lost histories

Julie’s work not only restores a missing piece of Holocaust memory but also illuminates how personal storytelling can rebuild connection, identity, and remembrance across generations.

A gripping conversation, a rare history, and a reminder that when survivors are few, descendants must become the storytellers.

Transcript

Episode 348
Host: Dana Arschin
Guest: Julie Brill, Author of Hidden in Plain Sight

Dana: Hey everyone, this is Dana Arschin Krasl, your host of The Dana Download. Thank you so much for joining us today. We’re going to jump right in with our guest. We have author Julie Brill. Her memoir, Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia, came out last April on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Julie, thank you so much for joining us via Zoom. Really appreciate it. And I hear you're in the Boston area right now—right?

Julie: Yes, that’s right. I live outside of Boston, Dana. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

Dana: Of course. And let’s tell the audience how we got connected. So, Dave Rekis—a good friend of mine who’s also been on The Dana Download—connected us. He’s the executive director of 3GNY, a group for the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. I looked it up… I think that was last February?

Julie: Yes! Dave is great. I’ve so enjoyed my friendship with him and everything I’ve learned from him.

Dana: And based on your memoir’s title… are you officially a 3G or a 2G?

Julie: I’m technically both. My father was a very young child survivor, so I’m a 2G and a 3G.

Dana: Nice. And let me say this—I interview Holocaust survivors every week. I go all over the tri-state area… I do a lot via Zoom. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the Serbia story. So please—tell us about it.

Julie: That’s because no one had heard that story—including us, my own family. We’d heard my father’s personal memories, but we had no historical context to put them into. I originally started writing the book just for us—for my kids, my niece, and my nephew. But when I was at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C., I realized there were no books on Yugoslavia. That’s when I understood this story really needed to reach a wider audience.

Dana: Wow. So tell us about the Jewish plight in Serbia—before, during, after the war. I’m fascinated. I also tend to interview mostly Ashkenazi survivors because that’s who reaches out. Recently people have been contacting me with Iraqi, Iranian, even Egyptian stories. I’m trying to broaden my understanding. So I’m so interested in yours.

Julie: I love the work you do. What I learned is that Belgrade had a very long-standing Jewish community. There were Jews there before the Sephardic Jews arrived in the early 1500s, but over time they merged into that larger Sephardic community. It was vibrant—Belgrade even had the first Ladino printing press.

Then the Ashkenazi community came later, in the mid-1800s. My family is actually both, which is incredibly unusual. My great-grandparents were a mixed marriage—Sephardic and Ashkenazi—which just didn’t happen. The communities were totally separate. Yet somehow, in this arranged marriage, they were put together.

Dana: That’s amazing. So at what age did you first hear these stories? When did the questions begin, and how did this turn into “I need to write a book”?

Julie: My father was always open with us. I don’t remember a time before the stories. I was probably three or four, and in the stories he was three or four. So it felt like a child telling another child. They were these snapshot memories—running as bombs fell, walking with crowds on railroad tracks, one scene at a time. Over time, they almost became my memories because they were so ingrained.

But I had no context. No order. None of the history. My father didn’t either. So as I researched, I would call him: “Dad, that bombing you described? That was April 6, 1941. You were not quite three.” I was literally giving my father his own history back. We learned it together.

Dana: Why do you think so few people know about the persecution of Jews in Serbia?

Julie: As a kid, I wondered the same thing. Why wasn’t it talked about? Why Poland, Amsterdam, Anne Frank… but not Belgrade? What I understand now is what historian Timothy Snyder calls the “Auschwitz paradox”: you need survivors—and now descendants—to tell the story.

Auschwitz was horrific. Over a million Jews were murdered there. But tens of thousands survived because it was also a labor camp. Many lived long lives and shared their stories.

Belgrade, however, had an extremely early and nearly complete annihilation. By spring 1942, the Germans declared Belgrade Judenfrei—free of Jews. That was before Auschwitz even became the main extermination center. There were almost no survivors left to speak.

Dana: That makes so much sense. My grandfather survived Auschwitz and lived to be nearly 102. While it was the biggest death camp, it also had the largest number of survivors because it was a work camp. When I was at Fox 5, I did a story on the “forgotten camps,” including Belzec—only two known survivors. When no one survives to tell the story, history fades. You’re doing very important work. I always say what I do is an obligation. You probably feel that too.

Julie: Absolutely. I feel like a self-appointed spokesperson. No one asked me—but there are so few of us. You mentioned the camp with two survivors. In Belgrade, in the camp for women and children, there was only one survivor—a baby smuggled out. We actually met her. It’s a tiny community. She believes our families were connected.

Dana: Tell us, without giving away the whole book, your father’s story in a nutshell.

Julie: He was born in August 1938 in Dorćol, the Jewish neighborhood in Belgrade. He lived with his parents and two uncles. When the war began, the Germans bombed civilian areas—including the Jewish quarter. His earliest memory is running with his mother as bombs fell.

Jewish men were registered for forced labor—my grandfather among them. They worked six days a week repairing bomb damage and slept at home at night. Then one day, my grandfather didn’t return. My grandmother was pregnant with my aunt. Eventually the men were imprisoned in a makeshift camp with nothing—no beds, no food—relying on the women to bring whatever they could.

One day she arrived, and the camp was empty. She knew then she had to flee with the children and hide.

The book title, Hidden in Plain Sight, comes from a 1943 photo of my father and aunt taken openly on a street—even though Jews weren’t allowed, cameras weren’t allowed, nothing about it should have been possible. Somehow she found a photographer, developed the film, and kept it safe—hoping my grandfather would return one day. He never did. Through research, we finally learned when and how he was murdered.

Dana: How did you find out?

Julie: Through the archives in Bad Arolsen. They were sealed for years but are now open. We found the records. The Germans had a policy in Serbia: for every German soldier killed, 100 civilians were executed; for every soldier wounded, 50 civilians. They used Jewish men held in camps as reprisal targets. By the end of 1941, virtually all had been murdered—including my grandfather.

Dana: Just unbelievable. So when your book was finally published, was it indeed released on Yom HaShoah?

Julie: Yes. That was important to me. My publisher—Amsterdam Publishers—focuses solely on Holocaust literature. They made sure it happened.

Dana: I know them well! They’ve published books for three of my friends. And trust me—there is no Holocaust fatigue in the Jewish world. People devour these stories. Every survivor story is different, and a Serbian story is practically unheard of.

Julie: I volunteer with 3GNY, helping descendants prepare their family stories for classrooms. Every story is remarkable. Every single survival is improbable. The odds are staggering. It’s near-miss after near-miss.

Dana: I assume your research required trips to Serbia?

Julie: Yes—three trips. It was crucial to get everything right. I worked with historians, original documents in Serbian and German, and visited every place where these events happened. Going with my daughters and my father—returning to the streets where he once ran as a toddler—that was indescribable.

Dana: Did anything surprise you on those trips?

Julie: Yes. We found family members we didn’t know existed. We believed our branch were the only survivors. But when we installed Stolpersteine—the memory stones placed where Jews last lived—we discovered descendants of one of the names. We reunited for the very first installation in Belgrade. It was extraordinary.

Dana: That’s incredible. So how do you hope your book contributes to Holocaust memory in Serbia? Are there memorials today?

Julie: When I started in 2017, there were no memorials listing the names of victims. I thought, naively, “Oh—they must have just overlooked this.” But it was far more complicated. It took five years, working with a local NGO, to install the first ten Stolpersteine in Belgrade. Now they’re adding stones for survivors too, symbolically reuniting families. It’s meaningful and long overdue.

Dana: That’s amazing. And if you ever need a documentarian—I’ll happily go with you.

Julie: Belgrade is incredible. Warm people, beautiful city. Yes, Dana—come with me! We’ll go back.

Dana: I would love that. Now, before we wrap up, have survivors or descendants from Serbian families reached out to you?

Julie: Yes! Every time I speak, I ask anyone with roots in Dorćol to contact me through my website, JulieBrill.com. So many people thought they were the only ones. Now they’re seeing their family stories in context for the first time. It’s emotional every time.

Dana: Is there anything else you’d like to share—where people can find the book?

Julie: Absolutely. The book isn’t just my family story—it’s also my own journey grappling with inherited history, identity, and how we talk about the Holocaust today. It’s about going to Serbia, learning what was handed down, and making sense of it all.

It’s available everywhere—Amazon, Barnes & Noble, local bookstores can order it. And yes—this is a good season for sales!

Dana: I’m so proud of you. When descendants take initiative like this, it matters. Your family’s legacy will live on. Are your parents still alive?

Julie: Both of them, yes. They live down the street. They’re very involved—my dad even comes to events sometimes.

Dana: I’d love to interview him via Zoom if you’d be willing to help set that up.

Julie: I’d love that.

Dana: Amazing. We’ll make it happen. And here’s the closing question I ask every guest: Is there one moment in your life that changed how you see the world?

Julie: Oh wow… I think the birth of my children. My oldest just got married, and I spoke at her wedding about how each new generation shifts your perspective. Suddenly it’s not just about us—it’s about what comes after, and what we pass forward.

Dana: That’s beautiful. My husband said something similar when he was my first guest—how everything suddenly revolves around childcare and how your time impacts someone else’s life. It’s a whole new chapter. And people without kids never understand why we can’t just hop on a phone call!

Julie: Exactly. And now my kids are grown—so I finally had time to write this book.

Dana: I’m dying to write one about my Poppy’s story… but it’ll be a while. One day! Julie, thank you. It was such a pleasure. After all our emails and back-and-forth, I’m so glad we made this work. I hope everyone listening will go buy Julie’s book: Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia. Julie, thank you.

Julie: Thank you, Dana. I really appreciate it.

Dana: And to everyone listening—thank you for joining us on The Dana Download. I hope you enjoy the unique guests we bring on. If you have someone you think I should interview, feel free to reach out. Thanks so much, and have a great day.